Judge Rules Parts of Florida Voting Law Are Unconstitutional

A federal judge in Florida ruled on Thursday that sections of the state’s year-old election law were unconstitutional and racially motivated, and barred the state from making similar changes to its laws in the next decade without the approval of the federal government.

The sharply worded 288-page order, issued by Judge Mark E. Walker of the Federal District Court in Tallahassee, was the first time a federal court had struck down major elements of the wave of voting laws enacted by Republicans since the 2020 election. Finding a pattern of racial bias, Walker in his ruling relied on a little-used legal provision to impose unusual federal restrictions on how a state legislates.

“For the past 20 years, the majority in the Florida Legislature has attacked the voting rights of its Black constituents,” Walker wrote in the decision that frequently quoted the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Walker argued that the attacks were “part of a cynical effort to suppress turnout among their opponents’ supporters. That, the law does not permit.”

Judge Walker’s decision is certain to be appealed and is likely to be overturned either by the Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in Atlanta, which tends to lean conservative, or the Supreme Court, which has sharply limited the federal government’s power to intervene in state election law.

Republicans in Florida immediately denounced the decision. At an appearance in West Palm Beach, Gov. Ron DeSantis called the ruling “performative partisanship” and predicted a reversal on appeal.

“There’s an old saying in law,” said Mr. DeSantis, who has a law degree. “If you have the facts on your side, argue the facts. If you have the law on your side, argue the law. If you have neither, you pound the table. Well, this is the judicial equivalent of pounding the table.”

The ruling targets the portions of the law that limited the use of drop boxes, placed strict rules on voter-registration organizations and forbade some kinds of assistance to Floridians waiting in line to vote. Judge Walker’s order blocks Florida from making changes to those three functions for 10 years without federal sign-off.

Even if fleeting, Judge Walker’s decision represents one of the most aggressive legal broadsides against Republicans in the heated voting rights battles that have followed President Donald J. Trump’s defeat in the 2020 election. The ruling also comes as Democrats and their allies pursue an uphill legal strategy, relying on federal voting protections diminished by the Supreme Court.

In his decision, Judge Walker castigated previous Supreme Court rulings on voting issues and essentially dared the justices to overturn his decision.

“Without explaining itself, the Court has allowed its wholly judge-made prudential rule to trump some of our most precious constitutional rights,” the judge wrote.

Judge Walker, who was appointed in 2012 by President Barack Obama, spared few rhetorical flourishes in declaring that Republicans sought to limit Black Floridians’ access to voting. He described Republican lawmakers as offering “conflicting or nonsensical rationales” for the law and argued that they were fundamentally motivated by a partisan drive to win elections.

“Florida has repeatedly sought to make voting tougher for Black voters because of their propensity to favor Democratic candidates,” he wrote.

Judge Walker’s decision pointed to comments made by state lawmakers during floor debate that described voters as “lazy” for failing to make it to the polls.

The Republican lawmakers “trotted out one of the oldest racial tropes known to man in response to concerns about minority disenfranchisement,” Judge Walker wrote.

Wilton Simpson, the Republican president of the Florida Senate, said in a statement that the ruling was “highly unprofessional, inaccurate, and unbecoming of an officer of the court.”

The state’s Democrats, locked out of power, celebrated the decision but remained wary that it may not withstand appeals.

“It’s been a tough few years for those of us who think politicians shouldn’t be making it harder for people they don’t like to be able to vote, so today is a big deal,” said Raymond Paultre, executive director of the Florida Alliance, a statewide network of progressive donors. “The fear is that it goes to the 11th Circuit and they fall in line with what Republicans want.”

With his ruling, Judge Walker placed a relatively obscure element of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 at the center of the legal debate over federal protection of voting rights.

For decades, the law required scores of jurisdictions across the country, and especially in the South, to clear voting law changes with the Justice Department. But in 2013, the Supreme Court invalidated the preclearance rules in a case known as Shelby County v. Holder.

Judge Walker’s decision put Florida under the federal restrictions, using Section 3 of the act. The provision, known as…